No more viola jokes

A couple of Saturdays ago I heard this quartet - the Jerusalem Quartet - performing at the Bath MozartFest. Wow. For sheer exuberance you can't beat them, nor for true musical mastery. Their Mozart was joyous, their Smetana* memorable. Especially for the outstanding viola solo in the first movement - I'd refer anyone dining out on viola jokes to Amichai Grosz, the Jerusalem's player. Enjoy their Dvorak Quintet (3rd movement) performed here with pianist Stefan Vladar.

*Smetana's autobiographical First Quartet - subtitled 'From My Life' - is a four-movement look back at his life from 1876. That viola solo - impossible to miss - was, in the then deaf Smetana's own words 'a kind of warning of my future misfortune' - during the last years of his life both his physical and mental health declined. The viola theme returns at the end of the quartet as the composer marshals together all the thematic loose ends.